LANGFORD BUDVILLE WAR MEMORIAL

The
memorial takes the form of a brass plaque within the church of St. Peter.
There is also a frame paer Roll of Honour containing seventy names of
those who served, including those who died. This has not been transcribed.
Their is also a plaque commemorating one of those named from World War
1 and one who died later.

[Roll
of Honour states 3rd/5th Battalion. Could not locate on SDGW] Lance
Corporal 3386, 1st/5th Battalion, Prince Albert's (Somerset Light
Infantry). Died 2nd September 1916. Aged 24. Son of Samuel and Emily
Thresher, of Langford Budville, Wellington, Somerset; husband of
Florence May Thresher, of Hele, Bishop's Hull, Taunton. Commemorated
on DELHI 1914-1918 WAR MEMORIAL, India. The DELHI 1914-18 MEMORIAL
stands in Delhi War Cemetery and commemorates 153 First World War
casualties buried in Meerut Cantonment Cemetery where their graves
could no longer be maintained.

Note:
The Sirikishna was built in Dundee by the Caledon Shipbuilding &
Engineering Company in 1936, along with her sister ship Shekatika,
and was of a modern design having a cruiser stern and a displacement
of 5458 tons. Crew 38. She left Avonmouth on 6th February 1941 and
headed up the Irish Sea where she joined with other ships off Liverpool
on 16th February to start forming convoy OB288, and then they proceeded
towards the Clyde to join with the remaining ships on 19th February.
On the night of 23-24 February, as the convoy had reached its dispersal
point and they all took course for their various destinations, a
pack of 6 boats, U69, U73, U95, U96, U107 and Bianchi fell upon
the unescorted merchantmen. U96, (Kapitanleutnant Heinrich Lehmann-Willenbrock)
first sighted the Sirikishna at 23.46 hrs on the 23rd, when she
was steaming at 9 knots on a north westerly heading. At 00.20 hrs
on the morning of the 24th, U96 ran into the attack and fired one
torpedo which struck the Sirikishna on her port side amidships,
whereupon she stopped and blew off steam, and her master ordered
the crew to abandon ship. Apparently none of the crew survived,
even though they had managed to get away in the lifeboats.